Malleable Material Research Articles

Infinitely malleable materials

Several executives listen attentively to a sharp-suited sales rep making his pitch. Suddenly, a miniature car emerges from a vat of gray goop in the center of the conference table. The salesman proceeds to reshape this model using nothing more than his hands, flattening the car's roofline and adjusting the geometry of its headlamps. Finally, he transforms the car from its initial haze gray to fire-engine red, its "atoms" twinkling in close-up with Disney-movie magic as their color changes. Yes, it's just a video done with special effects. But it comes from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, who are developing technology intended to enable not just the instant creation of complex objects-far beyond what today's 3-D printing can achieve-but also their transfiguration on command.

Turban pin: an unusual cause of foreign body aspiration in young islamic adult.

Turban pin: an unusual cause of foreign body aspiration in young islamic adult.

Interaction with virtual aesthetic shapes through a desktop mechatronic system

In common industrial practice the definition of shapes of styling products is performed by product designers. They usually produce aesthetic shapes by handcrafting scale models made of malleable material like clay, and often expensive physical prototypes are also manufactured. The paper describes a Desktop Mechatronic System (DMS) that has been conceived to support designers in the creation, evaluation and modification of aesthetic virtual shapes. The objective in designing this system is to develop a system allowing a continuous and smooth free hand physical interaction with a virtual shape, which is rendered through a dynamic cross-sectional contour or curve in three-dimensional (3D) space. The DMS is a useful tool for designers, who are not certain about the quality of the shape of the product, and can use it for testing out ideas. The DMS consists of a servo-actuated developable metallic strip, which reproduces 3D cross-sectional contours, which has been devised and implemented by using the Minimal Energy Curve (MEC) spline approach in which the equidistant interpolation points scheme has been adopted to imitate the virtual object created via a Computer Aided Design (CAD) tool on a physical bendable strip-like surface.

Ovid in the Age of Cervantes

Ovid in the Age of Cervantes

Bone Wax in Dermatologic Surgery

Bone wax is an inert, malleable material used as a hemostatic agent in treating surgical defects. Healing by secondary intention is an appropriate approach for certain situations in dermatologic surgery. When surgical wounds are deep enough for such tissues as bone or cartilage to be exposed, dressings may adhere to granulation tissue, making removal and subsequent wound care difficult and painful. In such cases bone wax can be molded around deep tissues to create an ideal occlusive, hemostatic microenvironment that facilitates second-intention wound healing.

Cera para huesos en la cirugía dermatológica

Bone wax is an inert, malleable material used as a hemostatic agent in treating surgical defects. Healing by secondary intention is an appropriate approach for certain situations in dermatologic surgery. When surgical wounds are deep enough for such tissues as bone or cartilage to be exposed, dressings may adhere to granulation tissue, making removal and subsequent wound care difficult and painful. In such cases bone wax can be molded around deep tissues to create an ideal occlusive, hemostatic microenvironment that facilitates second-intention wound healing.

Nitinol Stent for Percutaneous Heart Valve Implantation: Material Shape Setting

Percutaneous aortic valve implantation has become an alternative technique to surgical valve replacement in patients with high risk for open chest surgery. NiTi vascular stents clinically used today for noninvasive aortic valve replacement are, however, too traumatic. Obtained from laser cut Nitinol material, these stents impede the dimensional changes of the compliant aortic root over the cardiac cycle. Stents braided from Nitinol wire are conversely more flexible and appear to be a less traumatic alternative for heart valve replacement. However, in order to keep the cohesion of the braid specific 3D design, and the radial flexibility of the stent, the Nitinol wire needs to undergo successive thermal treatments for shape setting purpose. This study investigates the effect of two successive and nonidentical heat treatments on constrained stent wire behavior, in terms of microstructure and mechanical properties. With a first heat treatment over 10 minutes time at 450°on a fixture plate A F could be increased to handle easily the martensitic malleable stent material at ambient temperature. A second treatment over 10 min time at 550°decreased A F to 0°C to get a very elastic austenitic structure made with interlaced wires able to undergo 20% dimensional variations.

Formation of SmCo 5 single-crystal submicron flakes and textured polycrystalline nanoflakes

Surfactant-assisted high-energy ball milling (HEBM) of malleable materials has been found to lead to the formation of flakes. However, SmCo 5 magnetic materials are inherently brittle and, therefore, are not expected to “flake” during ball milling. In this study, we report the fabrication of high-aspect-ratio single-crystal flakes with a submicron thickness and textured polynanocrystalline flakes with a submicron or nanosize thickness of SmCo 5 by one-step surfactant-assisted HEBM in heptane with 15 wt.% oleic acid. Single-crystal micron flakes were first formed via a basal cleavage along the easy glide (0 0 1) planes of the initial irregular and large single-crystal particles during the first stage of HEBM. Subsequently, single-crystal submicron flakes were formed by continuous cleavage. With further ball milling, polycrystalline submicron flakes with small-angle grain boundaries were formed. Finally, crystallographically anisotropic polycrystalline SmCo 5 nanoflakes were formed with [0 0 1]-out-of-plane texture, thicknesses of 6–80 nm, average grain sizes of 7–8 nm, an aspect ratio of 10 2–10 3 and coercivities of 16.3–17.7 kOe. The mechanism responsible for unusual formation of single-crystal submicron flakes and anisotropic nanocrystalline nanoflakes from initial inherently brittle polycrystalline ingots with irregular grains of tens of microns in size is discussed.

The home hub

This paper discussed the latest design concepts for the kitchen of the future. At Grand Designs Live 2010, the House of the Future is entirely open-plan and clinically white. Round the corner is a rather different example of a space-saving kitchen. The Anima concept kitchen employs one space to make two rooms. An oblong unit serves as preparing/dining surface, until a storage unit slides up from the middle at the touch of a button. On one side it has kitchen shelves with utensils and glasses; on the other a living space is created with a built-in TV. Just add chairs. Also designed to combat space constraints, Electrolux's future concept 'Heart of the Home' has an amorphous surface, so that it can be bar/cooker at the touch of your hand. Press the surface and its malleable material will achieve the depth of a saucepan. Temperature controls will materialise to be touched.

Molecular mechanisms of crystallization impacting calcium phosphate cements.

The biomineral calcium hydrogen phosphate dihydrate (CaHPO(4).2H(2)O), known as brushite, is a malleable material that both grows and dissolves faster than most other calcium minerals, including other calcium phosphate phases, calcium carbonates and calcium oxalates. Within the body, this ready formation and dissolution can play a role in certain diseases, such as kidney stone and plaque formation. However, these same properties, along with brushite's excellent biocompatibility, can be used to great benefit in making resorbable biomedical cements. To optimize cements, additives are commonly used to control crystallization kinetics and phase transformation. This paper describes the use of in situ scanning probe microscopy to investigate the role of several solution parameters and additives in brushite atomic step motion. Surprisingly, this work demonstrates that the activation barrier for phosphate (rather than calcium) incorporation limits growth kinetics and that additives such as magnesium, citrate and bisphosphonates each influence step motion in distinctly different ways. Our findings provide details of how, and where, molecules inhibit or accelerate kinetics. These insights have the potential to aid in designing molecules to target specific steps and to guide synergistic combinations of additives.

The hermeneutic challenge of genetic engineering: Habermas and the transhumanists

The purpose of this paper is to explore the impact that developments in transhumanist technologies may have upon human cultures (and thus upon the lifeworld), and to do so by exploring a potential debate between Habermas and the transhumanists. Transhumanists, such as Nick Bostrom, typically see the potential in genetic and other technologies for positively expanding and transcending human nature. In contrast, Habermas is a representative of those who are fearful of this technology, suggesting that it will compound the deleterious effects of the colonisation of the lifeworld, further constraining human autonomy and undermining the meaningfulness of the lifeworld by expanding the technological control and manipulation of humanity. It will be argued that these opposed positions are grounded in fundamentally different understandings of the consequences of scientific and technological advance. On one level, the transhumanists remain confident that the lifeworld has within it the resources necessary to find meaning and purpose in a society deeply infused by genetic technology. Habermas disagrees. On another level, the difference is articulated by Horkheimer and Adorno in Dialectic of Enlightenment, primarily by challenging what may be understood as a Baconian faith in science as a project for the domination of nature (where nature is an infinitely malleable material, to be dominated and shaped, without adverse consequences, purely for the purposes of human survival). While the transhumanists broadly embrace this faith, Habermas returns to something akin to Horkheimer and Adorno's pessimistic scepticism.

Qualitative model of the atom, its components and origin in the early universe

This paper is the first qualitative model of the atom and its components as well as its origin in our early universe. The atom’s components–proton, neutron (with its neutrino) and electron–are built on the prima, units of visible matter. Their qualitative models are obtained using some laws of nature. They yield new information such as the mass of the neutrino and how heavy isotopes of an atom form as well as the arrangement of the nucleons. It clarifies some presently unresolved issues such as what happens in thermonuclear explosion and whether it can be controlled to generate energy. It also explains the wave-particle duality of the primum and photon, metal fatigue, matter-anti-matter interaction and brittle and malleable materials and reviews the early phase of the development of our universe beyond the formation of the first atom up to its rapid formation at the present time in the Cosmos and tissues of living organisms.

Analysis and Prediction of Constriction Resistance Between Coated Surfaces

Introduction T HE resistance to heat flow encountered at the interface between two rough surfaces is a pervasive problem in thermal design. This phenomenon of contact resistance is important in electronics, aerospace, and heat exchanger applications in which efficient heat removal is essential.1,2 Because of the microscopically rough nature of real engineering surfaces, only 1–2% of the nominal surface area is in actual contact.3 An interstitial gas or vacuum fills the remaining gaps between these surfaces. The heat flow from one surface to the other is greatly constricted to flow through only the contacting asperities. To understand the flow of heat across the contact, it is necessary to understand the constriction resistance occurring on the microscale. Constriction resistance is defined as the ratio of the additional temperature drop due to constriction to the rate of heat flow through the interface. Carslaw and Jaeger4 analytically determined the constriction resistance for a half-space. However, the half-space approximation is a poor approximation for actual surfaces in contact. Mikic and Rohsenow5 considered the heat as flowing through heat flux columns (semi-infinite cylinders), which terminate in a small contact radius. They showed that the constriction resistance for this case can be related to the resistance of a half-space by a constriction alleviation factor F . Olsen et al.6 proposed that an asperity on a real surface is best modeled as a cylinder terminating in the frustum of a cone. When a finite difference conduction analysis of this geometry was used, the effects of contact radius, contact angle, and substrate conductivity on constriction resistance were explored. Black et al.7 refined this model and calculated constriction resistance over a wide range of parameters for bare contacts. A generalized equation suitable for computer implementation was developed by performing a nonlinear least-squares fit to the numerical data. Singhal and Garimella8 used this equation in conjunction with a surface deformation model for bare surfaces to predict the contact resistance between real metallic surfaces. For the mitigation of contact resistance, one or more of the mating surfaces is often coated with a conductive and malleable material such as tin or silver. The present work aims to extend the work of Black et al.7 to investigate constriction resistance in the presence of

Helping children make their mark on the world outside

Helen Bromley explores providing children with opportunities to read, use malleable materials and make marks in the outdoor area.

The Affect of Selection in Digital Sound Art

The Affect of Selection in Digital Sound Art

Productivity and quality improvements through orbital forming

Orbital forming is an efficient and precise process to assemble component parts. It provides strength, an attractive finished appearance, and batch‐to‐batch uniformity. Orbital forming machines can produce high‐torque assemblies and also freely swinging joints, and any degree of built‐in resistance in between. These machines quietly flare and form all malleable materials, including many engineering thermoplastics, and work safely on delicate and brittle parts. The machine controls provide infinitely variable cycle times (speed), forming pressure and tool stroke on the micrometer dial with resolution to 0.001 in.

Determination of mercury by total-reflection X-ray fluorescence using amalgamation with gold

Analysis by total-reflection X-ray fluorescence (TXRF) is unsuitable for determining mercury concentrations because the usual sample preparation produces evaporation and loss of this element as a consequence of its high vapour pressure and low boiling point. A method that has been developed to achieve this determination involves forming an amalgam while a thin layer of silver (obtained by sputtering or evaporation) is in contact with an ionic solution of Hg; subsequently, a traditional TXRF analysis is performed. This was the first method reported in the literature to apply the TXRF technique for reliably determining mercury concentrations with high sensitivity. This work shows how a similar procedure may be employed to measure mercury concentrations. This second method involves forming an amalgam of gold using microlitre quantities of the solution to be analysed. As gold is a highly malleable material, it allows the production of very thin films, the weight of which is a few orders of magnitude higher than the mass of mercury present in the amalgam. The determination is performed in the usual way using the TXRF technique. The sensitivity of this method (≈ 5 ppm) is inferior to that of the former method, and data processing is quite difficult because the peaks for mercury and gold overlap, but the experiment is simple to execute and improved sensitivity is expected to be attained by forming the amalgam with larger volumes of sample and with a more responsive data processing scheme.

Observations on Romanesque and Gothic Vault Construction

In these examples, taken from a comprehensive study of English vaults of the late eleventh to the early fourteenth century, the vaults retain traces of the planks, laths, and wattle used in the formwork to create their curvature. Evidence of the widespread use of wattle formwork suggests that this malleable material was more commonly used than has been previously acknowledged.

Applications of Sculptural Art Forms in Precast Concrete Structures

Precast concrete is one of the most malleable and creative materials available to the construction industry. The variety of forms, surfaces, weights and strengths available in precast concrete is substantial. This article features four projects which involve innovative ways of manipulating precast concrete in public works. The projects include a parking structure, a sand play area for a tot lot, a plaza and entry, and a 311 ft (95 m) pedestrian bridge.

Malleable Foam-Covered Splinting Material

Malleable Foam-Covered Splinting Material